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The biggest national(American) news stories/events of your lifetime

DragoonKain

DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
With the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks coming up in a few days, it had me thinking of what the biggest American news stories of my lifetime were.

9/11 is definitely #1, it isn’t even close.

COVID is up there. If it isn’t #2 it’s not very far behind.

I’m not old enough to have been around for Watergate, JFK, or Vietnam.

I was thinking of some others.

The OJ trial.

Maybe also the Unabomber.

I‘m sure I’m missing a bunch. What are yours?

Decided to remove Berlin Wall. I considered it kinda an American news story since the US was obviously a big part of that whole thing, but decided it's more of a Germany story than American.
 
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S

Star-Lord

Member
I’m not American, but I’d say Clinton’s extra-marital affair ranks up there highly as one of the biggest, at least most scandalous, stories of the 20th century.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
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Happosai

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
AJUMP23 said:
The Challenger explosion. I lived in central Florida at the time and saw the explosion above my school.
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Challenger was devastating but at least they didn't suffer quite like the victims of Columbia. Columbia is another terrible one many forget. NASA knew the heat shields were not going to make reentry possible but at least had the decency to not give the new to the crew before returning (as not to make everyone depressed and enjoy their last moments together).
 
haxan7

haxan7

Banned
Chris. said:
Don’t get me wrong, I’m #TeamBritney all the fucking way. Look at her, she’s fucking gorgeous and still knows how to belt out a cracker. She literally is a queen.
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She looks like she woke up in a Las Vegas gutter with no memory of the past 3 days.
 
K

Kraz

Banned
A couple from the 90s like the ones you mentioned

Oklahoma City bombing was a big one.

Waco Branch Davidians.

Pretty sure they made it into Eminem songs.
The clip of the burning building from Waco was used in a movie. Think it was Natural Born Killers.
 
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Quasicat

Quasicat

Member
AJUMP23 said:
The Challenger explosion. I lived in central Florida at the time and saw the explosion above my school.
Click to expand...
What made things so crazy is that NASA was using the Challenger mission as a way to bring the space program to a new generation. There is a really good documentary called I am Big Bird in which Carroll Spinney was invited, as Big Bird, to go up on the Challenger. The costume was too big and NASA went to recruiting school teachers instead.

Could you imagine how devastated America’s children would be of Big Bird was on the Challenger when it happened?
 
O

OneMoreDay

Neo Member
Here in Norway, Anders Behring Breivik shooting up Utøya killing 69 kids while listening to the World of Warcraft soundtrack kinda dwarfs whatever presidential scandals you've had in the US.
 
S

Star-Lord

Member
OneMoreDay said:
Here in Norway, Anders Behring Breivik shooting up Utøya killing 69 kids while listening to the World of Warcraft soundtrack kinda dwarfs whatever presidential scandals you've had in the US.
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I mean, mass shootings are quite common in the US. Not saying yours wasn’t a tragedy, but playing Top Trumps with shootings is only going to end badly.
 
Jaxx_377

Jaxx_377

Neo Member
9/11 obviously is the big one

OKC Bombing

The Challenger explosion

OJ Simpson Trial

Hurricane Katrina / Hurricane Andrew

Baby Jessica trapped in the well

The Northridge quake

Lewinsky scandal
 
p_xavier

p_xavier

Authorized Fister
For me it's the current division and extreme polarization of the USA with the wokes against QAnon. I can't see anything good coming out of it and I fully expect a civil war in the next decade.
 
O

OneMoreDay

Neo Member
Chris. said:
I mean, mass shootings are quite common in the US. Not saying yours wasn’t a tragedy, but playing Top Trumps with shootings is only going to end badly.
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Yeah, uh, I guess you've got us beat there, no American is going to regard Utøya as a particularely huge deal. It's literally the only mass-shooting to ever take place on Norwegian soil, though, so it was quite groundbreaking to us.
 
Old Retro

Old Retro

Member
US Embassy hostage crisis

John Lennon assassination

Michael Jackson's first moonwalk

Challenger explosion

New Coke

Iran Contra scandal (shit was on tv day and night)

Operation Dessert Storm

Michael Jordan retirement

9/11/2001
 
S

Star-Lord

Member
OneMoreDay said:
Yeah, uh, I guess you've got us beat there, no American is going to regard Utøya as a particularely huge deal. It's literally the only mass-shooting to ever take place on Norwegian soil, though, so it was quite groundbreaking to us.
Click to expand...
I’m not American. And I’m not trying to say that what happened in Norway wasn’t a big deal, because it was. However, in the grand scheme of things, there is no winner or loser when it comes to ‘most people killed in a shooting’ as every life lost is a tragedy, but in terms of numbers, the US has every other nation beat.
 
BigBooper

BigBooper

Member
DragoonKain said:
Decided to remove Berlin Wall. I considered it kinda an American news story since the US was obviously a big part of that whole thing, but decided it's more of a Germany story than American.
Click to expand...
Good point. The Berlin Wall is part of American cultural history, like Abba, Freddie Mercury, and AC/DC.
 
Tschumi

Tschumi

Member
The global climate crisis becoming reality and deniers shifting their outrage to other targets instead of trying to make amends

  • Stem Cell research towards cures for diseases like ALS.
  • TFLOPS turning out to mean next to nothing.
  • 9/11
  • Great Recession
  • China's Human Rights Abuses against the Uighurs
  • China stripping Hong Kong of is autonomy
  • Australia electing another conservative immediately after Tony Abbott
  • The Abbott government pointlessly gimping Australia's internet speeds solely to exercise a voter base
  • Covid 19
  • Quatar purchasing a World Cup for which they would have to commit human rights abuses to build air conditioned stadiums
  • Aung San Suu Kyi turning out to be the kind of person who makes excuses for genocide after all
  • Someone who specifically went against every norm of behaviour - including general competence - being in charge of a very self serious nation for 4 years.
  • Conservatives realising that need to rig votes or they'll never win another election
 
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S

Star-Lord

Member
Very different to 9/11, but I remember the 7/7 London bombings like it was yesterday. I’d just gotten into work when I heard it on the radio. I thought it was a hoax at first, but someone had turned on the TV in the lounge, and there it was. There have, of course, been other terrorist attacks since - most notably the beheading of Lee Rigby, the Manchester Arena bombing, the Westminster Bridge attack, and the London Bridge attack - but 7/7 really sticks out for me.
 
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